East Cree Vowels

Northern East Cree has seven vowels, and Southern East Cree has eight. Each of the vowels can be pronounced in several slightly different ways. The various ways of pronouncing each vowel are listed in square brackets and IPA, and the letters that represent each vowel are shown afterwards. The vowels are grouped into two categories, TENSE (or long) and LAX (or short), for reasons to be explained later.

This also occurs in Southern East Cree but we do not currently have examples.

Long and short

In East Cree, the tense vowels often sound twice as long as the lax vowels. However, this is not always the case: tense vowels can also sound about as short in duration as lax vowels. Examples are provided in the page on tense vowels.

Lax vowels do not usually sound as long as tense vowels. However, lax vowels can sound long. One example of this in Northern East Cree is ᐅᑎᐦᑉutihp.

What am I hearing?

East Cree vowels can sound ‘in between’ to your ear. A good example in Northern East Cree is the vowel in ᓲᑉsuup: does it sound more like soup, more like soap, or in between?

For more information

East Cree vowel sounds are described in detail in the following pages: